The author tells of the experience of cofounding a group of male teachers of color within the Boston Teacher Residency program. The group's theory of action was that professional development focused on addressing the unique challenges of male teachers of color would help these teachers develop tools and strategies to navigate their school environment. More importantly, these male teachers of color would be better able to focus on creating conditions that facilitated learning for students -- the majority of whom were of color and from working class families.

Sponsored by the Elevate Children Funders Group (ECFG), a three-day Program Learning Event (PLE) on Violence against Children in and around Schools (VACiS) held in Kampala, Uganda from 14-16 July 2015, attracted 77 practitioners, donors, advocates, researchers and government representatives in the field of violence against children from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States of America. The theme of the event was developing a common learning agenda on preventing and responding to VACiS.

This report examines how the California's 2.16 million Black residents (6 percent of total population) are faring in higher education attainment compared with other racial/ethnic groups. While Black Californians have improved their education outcomes over the last couple of decades, they still experience significant opporunity gaps. The report calls for a concerted, strategic effort to produce better educational outcomes for Black students including a new statewide plan for California higher education, a redesign of pre-college level courses, re-enrollment of adults with some college but no degree, and allowing public universities to use race/ethnicity as one of many considerations in their admissions process.